It's bad news for any health conscious ‘Spoons fans – their ‘Large Breakfast’ comes top in almost every category

Now, the unhealthiest breakfast meals from popular high street chains have been revealed – and some of the results will shock you.

A team of health experts examined 11 different high street restaurants, including McDonald's, Greggs, Starbucks and Wetherspoon, to find out the worst offenders when it came to being unhealthy.

GP Dr Wayne Osbourne and health website Treated.com rated breakfasts based on their calories, saturated fat, salt and sugar content before ranking the worst 11 items from each restaurant in order of unhealthiness.

And it’s bad news for any health conscious ‘Spoons fans – their ‘Large Breakfast’ comes top in almost every category.

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Highest sugar

Belgian Waffles from Harvester were found to contain the most sugar out of the meals examined, but not far behind is MOMA Porridge with Banana and Honey from Wetherspoon, which although may seem a healthier choice, contains 64.3g of the white stuff.

Dr Osbourne explains that almost all of the breakfast options listed could contain someone's daily allowance for sugar – because there is a difference between total sugars, and added sugars.

“Health guidelines state that foods with added sugar should actually make up no more than five per cent of a person’s daily calorie intake”, he added.

Highest salt

Once again, Wetherspoon's Large Breakfast tops the list again, according to the research.

At first, Dr Osbourne says he wondered whether or not Wetherspoon had made a mistake on their nutritional information, as it so much higher than the other meals listed.

The big brekkie contains over three times an adult’s recommended daily salt intake of 2.6 grams.

However, nearly all of the unhealthiest items from the restaurants contained more than the recommended daily allowance of salt - with only meals from Burger King, Caffe Nero and Costa Coffee containing less than this.

Harvester's Ultimate Breakfast Bap is also a sinner when it comes to salt, at 29.4g.

Although they rank from fourth place onwards, five of the 11 dishes examined were croissants - which would likely be prepared with plenty of butter.

Dr Osbourne said: “However many may be surprised to learn that croissants can contain more saturated fat than those traditional breakfast dishes we might often see as being more fatty, such as the bacon sandwich.”

Verdict

Dr Osbourne wanted to make clear that of course all these restaurants do provide healthier options too.

But he added: “Clearly the environment where we have the most control over the food we eat is in our home kitchen, when we prepare the meal ourselves from scratch.

He also added that eating out can be healthy too.

He said: “Provided you’re disciplined and consistently choose healthy options, frequenting chain outlets for breakfast can be a healthy (if more costly) alternative to preparing breakfast at home.”

Wetherspoon’s list the calorie content of their food on their menu, so people that choose the Big Breakfast are likely already aware of the calories – and they do provide breakfasts ranging from 200 calories.